According to the ex-NSW Senior Trade and Investment Commissioner for Japan and Korea, Michael Newman:
- Australia has 140 public servants to every 1,000 people
- Japan has 38 per 1,000 people.
- Employs 2.5 million bureaucrats, costing us $232 billion a year.
- Has five times our population, runs on 3.3 million bureaucrats and spends only $270 billion.
- 17 per cent of the working age population is now on the government payroll.
- Just five per cent.
- Bureaucrats are on bigger salaries too. Per head, Aussie public servants earn an average of $93,000 versus Japan at just $76,000.
- At the senior executive level, federal heads of department are raking in up to $1,000,000 Aussie dollars a year.
To compare with Japan, the top earning politicians in the Asian archipelago bring home about $255,000.
Mr Newman sensibly suggested that senior civil servants should be paid like private sector professionals, with a smaller base salary with performance-based rewards.
As Thomas Sowell said “It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.”
